Buying a Gaming Monitor

Finding Your Best Monitor for Gaming

For the best experience, you'll want a gamer monitor that can keep up with today's games. You'll find a variety of options, so you can compare features in order to pick the best gaming monitor for you.

Top Gaming Monitor Features

There are a variety of features to consider when choosing the best monitor for your PC games. First, you'll want to pick a gaming PC monitor that suits the space where you'll be gaming. Bigger isn't always better if you'll be sitting so close that the edges of a larger monitor might be outside your peripheral vision. Most people find that a monitor 20"–25" is best. You could also consider a curved gaming monitor, which allows for a wider field of vision with its gentle bend.

Three important features to consider in regard to visual quality are resolution, refresh rate and response time. Monitor resolution determines the field of vision and how smooth the visuals will be. While you can usually adjust display resolution in games, you can only choose a resolution as high as your monitor maximum. The highest resolution that's currently available is 4K, which displays at four times that of Full HD. A good gaming monitor will have a refresh rate that's at least 60Hz. This means the screen refreshes 60 times every second. Motion is displayed with more clarify and smoothness with faster refresh rates, which is important with fast-paced games. And you'll want a monitor with a response time that's 5 ms or less. This milliseconds measurement indicates how the screen pixels can transition from one color to another. With the lightning quick action of games, motion blur or "ghosted" images can appear with slower response times. Some monitors also feature special technologies, like NVIDIA G-SYNC and AMD FreeSync, that pair with compatible graphics cards for fluid gameplay.

Creating the Best Gaming Monitor Setup

Pair your gaming monitor with the latest accessories for just the right environment to suit your needs. You'll find gaming glasses created to help minimize a variety of symptoms that can be associated with long gaming sessions, including dry eyes, headaches and more. To surround yourself with the sounds of your games, consider a pair of gaming speakers for quality acoustics. And to help shield all your components from power fluctuations, consider a surge protector to protect your gaming setup.